A survey of pay and conditions for people working in Irish theatre has found that their median earnings are only €7,200 a year.
Performers are the worst off in a generally badly paid sector, earning on average just €5,500 in a full year.
For the weeks when they were actually working, the average wage for a performer last year was €456, while a production artist earned on average €546, and technical/managerial workers €713.
The report on the Socio-Economic Conditions of Theatre Practitioners in Ireland, the first to examine the reality of a career in theatre, was published yesterday by the Arts Council, which commissioned it last September.
The research, by Hibernian Consulting, shows theatre workers are well educated, with 73 per cent having a third-level qualification (compared with 28 per cent of the wider labour force), but that their incomes lag behind many other sectors. In a comparison of average weekly wages, accountants (€1,641) and solicitors (€1,475) top the list, with theatre practitioners at €513, and minimum wage employees €279. Those wages are for weeks when people are actually working, which averages 20 weeks a year in the theatre sector, which is largely freelance and precarious.
"The average weekly wage from their speciality identified in the study is some €150 a week for half of theatre practitioners, having an average of just 20 weeks work a year in their specialist area," said Arts Council chairwoman Olive Braiden yesterday. "There is a perception in Ireland and many other countries that performing artists enjoy celebrity, wealth and privilege.
"This study clearly shows that the opposite is the case. While theatre practitioners are a welleducated group, they have to manage multiple jobs to survive, and manage to exist on low incomes."
As well as theatre being subsidised by public funding, it was also subsidised by its practitioners, said Arts Council director Mary Cloake.
One of the results of such low pay rates and insecure employment is that performers, production and technical/managerial staff often in effect subsidise their art form through unpaid or low-paid work, as well as through secondary jobs and from support of family and friends.
The study looked in detail at the socio-economic position of 195 people, out of an estimated 900 freelance theatre practitioners, including performing artists (actors, dancers, choreographers in theatre productions); production artists (playwrights, directors, designers); technical and managerial practitioners (technicians, stage and production managers and producers).
The study found that whereas three-quarters of the general population own their own home, just over half of theatre practitioners do so. Pension provision, holidays and even car insurance are also problematic. Just 29 per cent in theatre have a pension plan (compared with 52 per cent generally), and more than 40 per cent were unable to take a holiday (versus 23 per cent generally).
Notwithstanding this, many of those working in theatre were good at managing on frugal incomes and had an ability to manage short-term contracts, which have an average length of eight weeks.